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Sorry, I replied to your question earlier, but it must have disappeared into cyberspace when I pressed the wrong icon.

Because my testimony in support of LD 429, the nation's first pet vaccine disclosure legislation, quoted from the 2003 American Animal Hospital Association's Canine Vaccine Guidelines, I continue to send them out.

Also, I believe the 2003 version, which was not intended for the public and was only made available to the professional veterinary community, contained franker discussions of issues associated with vaccine protocols. The 2006 version has "sanitized" some of the material that may have been considered offensive to veterinarians -- such as the quote below from Page 18 of the 2003 Guidelines:

"However, the ethical issue that our profession struggles with today is whether economics justifies giving an animal a drug (vaccines are biologic drugs) that is not necessarily required. As a minimum, we should allow pet owners to make this choice rather than make it for them."

I hope this answers your question.

Kris

Many of my posts have quoted the American Animal Hospital Association's Canine Vaccine Guidelines, you can find them at the links below.

It would just seem that regardless, if the recommendations have been refined, and the panel is the same people, and this is half a decade ago -- quite a long time in research terms!! -- that it would be much better to be giving people the current recommendations?

It seems at odds to be working towards getting a new study done on rabies while at the same time advising people to look at recommendations that were superceded two years ago by a new set that reflect current research and therefore may have important changes, adjustments or reconsidered thinking. Or to look at it another why, why then shouldn't people also rely on old information for rabies, if it doesn't really matter whether the recommendations and research are as up to date as possible? Either current research is important, or it doesn't really matter and people can pick and choose what they want from the AAHA recommendations. The exec summary of the 2006 recommendations outline all the areas in which they have made changes and some, such as vaccinating puppies, are quite important.

I'd be concerned that the quote you offer could be misleading if taken out of context -- and assumed to mean the AAHA advises making one's own choice about not giving vaccines at all. This is clearly not their intention except in the most exceptional cases. I have seen puppies and adults with distemper and parvo and it is horrific. Puppies are particularly susceptible to both.

The 2006 guidelines make clear they are talking about vaccines that they consider essential and those that are non-essential as well as the intervals for administering them. They say (page 2):

Core vaccines are those that all dogs should receive in one form or another [my emphasis]. Optional vaccines should be administered selectively, based on the animal's geographic and lifestyle exposure and an assessment of risk/benefit ratios.

Given that most people will not read an entire report but focus on the tables, it makes sense to at least give people both documents, not just an out of date one.

There is nothing different in the 2006 revision on the recommendations for the core vaccines -- rabies, distemper, hepatitis, parvo. There have not been new challenge or serological studies published since the 2003 version came out.

The rabies challenge challenge studies that Dr. Ronald Schultz is currently conducting for The Rabies Challenge Fund are the FIRST long-term challenge studies done on the rabies to be published in the United States. Dr. Schultz has done long-term SEROLOGICAL studies on the canine rabies vaccine, but not CHALLENGE studies.

States will not extend their rabies booster requirements without solid scientific data conducted according to USDA vaccine licensing standards to justify it. If these studies are able to replicate the 1992 French challenge studies demonstrating a 5 year MINIMUM duration of immunity for the canine rabies vaccine, then the science will be available for the states to extend their booster requirements.

The USDA does not require long-term duration of immunity studies in order to license veterinary vaccines, and there is no incentive for the vaccine manufacturers to fund research which could result in reduced sales of their vaccines. That is why pet owners are funding these studies themselves.

Kris

Many of my posts have quoted the American Animal Hospital Association's Canine Vaccine Guidelines, you can find them at the links below.